Predicting Atlanta United’s lineup against the Houston Dynamo

On Sunday, Dirty South Soccer history was made: my first-ever perfect lineup prediction. Please don’t hold it against me, though, if I’m off the mark on this one because I don’t get paid the big bucks to put a lineup together before a professional soccer match 34+ times a year. Franco Escobar is suspended, Brek Shea is done for the year and Mikey Ambrose and Florentin Pogba are hurt - I’m a bit surprised that they haven’t called me to fill in against the Houston Dynamo tonight.

So consider this an educated guess more than anything:

To be honest, with so many people missing from the defense, I’m really not 100% sure how this will look exactly. My best stab at it is (perhaps?) Pity Martinez dropping back between Darlington Nagbe and Eric Remedi to give this more of a 3-5-2 look, while playing Dion Pereira and Julian Gressel on the outside. Maybe it takes more of a 4-3-3 with a Michael Parkhurst-LGP-Miles Robinson-Jullian Gressel backline with Gressel playing fullback in place of Franco Escobar? (Side note: I’m interested in seeing how new guy Mo Adams fits into this lineup down the road, but he’s not playing tonight having not trained with the team yet.)

What do you guys think? Let me know down in the comments.